Erik is a baseball fan who has been attending baseball games and snagging baseballs regularly since 2008.

4-17-09 PNC Park

I was hoping to have a huge day today since the Penguins had a playoff game. Sure enough, batting practice was pretty empty, but I didn’t have a stand out day.

My wife and I arrive at the park at 4:05 PM and were second in line. I went into batting practice and looked for Easter Eggs, but there were none. There were a couple ushers standing around and they must’ve picked up anything that came out. I settled into my spot in left field and waited.

An unidentified Pirate hit a deep fly ball. He hit it right into the sun, but I was able to catch it on the fly… barely. It almost went over my head. Nonetheless, I had ball #1 of the day.

Nyjer Morgan was shagging balls in the outfield and I called his name, he looked at me and tossed a ball, but it was headed for some random guy with a Pantera hat on. The guy was holding a calendar and didn’t have a glove and looked out of place at batting practice. He reached for the ball and missed it. I picked the ball up on the deflection. It was ball #2. He kind of gave me a look like he expected me to give it to him, but I didn’t. Since I called for Nyjer to throw the ball, I felt like I earned it, plus he didn’t have a glove and wasn’t prepared.

The Pirates portion of batting practice ended and the Braves came out to hit. They weren’t hitting anything deep. To make matters worse, batting practice looked like this:I had so much room to roam and chase down home runs, but none were coming. One finally did come out, but I misjudged the ball and it was over my head. If I had been one row deeper I would have caught the ball. I slammed my glove in disgust and muttered to myself.

I tried to chase down some other fly balls, but everything ended up falling short of the fence. It was one of those days.

6 Comments

Bro, honestly, you collect the most crap at the end of the game than anyone I have ever met. 20 CALENDARS?! Ticket stubs I can understand as I am a ticket stub collector myself and would love to have a stub from every game possible, if offered, but what are you going to do with twenty calendars and at least ten magnetic schedules that were pictured from Opening Day? It’s good to collect, but with the way you do things, your Baseball Room must be crowded. Bad days suck, as you already know how I fared the other day, but I think I’ll be at Sunday’s game snaggin’ away. Now, that’s considered to be scored in my stats for next week, correct? Because, Sunday is the start of a new week lol. Let me know, Erik, and congrats on your three snagged balls, ticket stubs, and twenty (20) calendars.

Sorry I couldn’t meet you yesterday, I ended up having a last minute practice and wasn’t able to attend BP. I still ended up getting Nate’s 1st inning warm up ball though. I’ll let you know if I’m coming to any other games soon. Nice work today w/ the 3 balls too.

Donnie,
The calendars were nice – I’ve already give 3 away to fellow ballhawks not in attendance on Friday. The ballhawk league weeks go Monday-Sunday. Sunday is the last day of the ballhawking week. Monday is the first day. If you made a mistake in your week 2 reporting, just add Sunday in with your week 3 stats.

Evan,
I think Nate knows who I am and purposely throws it away from me. I snagged 3 of the 4 balls he threw into the crowd one Sunday last year, and I don’t think he meant to throw any one of the to me. I had to jump for all of them.

Playball,
Not sure yet.

Leigh,
Last BP ball of the day is great. Its always good to end on a high note.

Puck,
Any time you step foot into the stadium, it counts in your statistics.

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